L’Est Républicain

6 June 1999

The dreamworld life

of the Cirque Plume men

Michèle Yahyaoui

The Cirque Plume presents a preview of its new
show to a Franche-Comté audience.
Before a European tour

Life is not a long peaceful river. While some try to tame it, the performers of the Cirque Plume have chosen to have fun with it. And that goes back a long way.
Twenty years ago, they took to the streets with their cymbals and tubas. They played well and had the whole place laughing, remember some ardent admirers in front of the big-top set up at Salins-les-Bains in the Jura.
The small group of performers has really grown. If their reputation today has spread beyond the frontiers of France, they are still the darlings of their native Franche-Comté. The Jura town which has played host to them in the last three months for rehearsals, was the first to see their new show "Mélanges (opéra plume)" before a European tour.

Funny birds

In the audience, impatient to see the stage to come to life, five-year-old, Leonard, twirls his dolphin.
An unusual performance in a big-top which harbours no animals, if not, at most, some funny birds. First sign of life and the first bursts of laughter. An angel of no fixed abode has made his home in this madhouse alongside a housing-estate Lolita, a Basque juggler, and an Irish cantatrice. The voice of one wraps itself around the gestures of the other. As an inspired observer, the angel is there navigating between heaven and earth. The beautiful white feather which, like an obscure brightness, falls from the tent top, is not lost on everyone. The concierge catches it in its flight and sticks it into her feather duster. As one loses his plumage the other’s plumage grows.

The show nestles in every niche of the place. A double bass taking lightly to the air and even cellular phones, becoming at last acceptable, add to the wealth of thrills and emotions.
When the lights go on, eyes are still dazzled and comments intermingle. Leonard speaks of "the man who flies because of the feather which was stuck into his tee-shirt". The pensioner from Arbois evokes how rich and complete the whole show is: "They are real musicians and acrobats. It is a beautiful restful circus". While the young people seem to be dazed as if coming from a concert: "That was cool". Everyone takes what he wants from this show which is funny, colourful, poetic, a bit chaotic, sketchy and precise just like life.